


where desire lacks

by Blink_Blue



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Bottom Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Dubious Consent, Except the can't die, Fuck Or Die, Jealousy, Joe and Nicky are soulmates, M/M, Top Booker | Sebastien le Livre, because I like pain, but Booker also loves Joe, obviously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:41:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28664880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blink_Blue/pseuds/Blink_Blue
Summary: On an anniversary that brings grief, Booker is cursed with sex magic. Deeply buried feelings are brought to light and Joe has a difficult choice to make.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 5
Kudos: 70





	where desire lacks

**New York City, 1980**

The air is quiet in the abandoned apartment building that they’ve chosen to inhabit while they’re in the city. Andy has them working on a sex trafficking case run by a cartel-type organization. They are no strangers to organized crime, but this type of exploitation always leaves a particularly bad taste in their mouths.

Nicky hums to himself as he reads in the low light of the gas lamp—abandoned buildings aren’t typically hooked up to electricity. He hears a faint commotion, so quiet it could be coming from outside. But then Andy looks up sharply from where she sits on a sleeping mat on the other side of the room and meets his eyes. There are plenty of homeless inhabitants that they share the building with, but the voices quickly growing louder are remarkably familiar. 

There is no good reason for Joe and Booker to be so loud while coming back from a few drinks at a nearby bar. 

They’re on their feet, weapons in hand just as Joe bursts through the door, Booker barely hanging off his shoulder. They look awful. 

“I need help!” Joe rasps, as he drags the heavier man inside, his eyes wide in panic. Booker is shaking, trying to curl in on himself, while also holding onto Joe for support. The pain is written clear as day across his face. He would not be on his feet if it weren’t for Joe’s arms holding him up. 

Nicky and Andy look over their comrade closely as they set him down. In the dim, flickering light, as their eyes skim across his body, there are no wounds, no sign of blood, no sign of _anything_ out of the ordinary. But Booker’s face is scrunched in pain, pulling away from the hands that are checking him over while he lies crumpled on the meager bedroll placed on the dirty floor.

As expected, he reeks of alcohol. 

Andy runs her hands across Booker’s forehead, brushing back the hair that had been matted to his skin by sweat. “What the hell happened?” Her voice waivers with an uncertainty that they’ve rarely heard over the centuries. 

“This is my fault,” Joe says.

Nicky’s brow furrows while Booker gives out a harsh grunt, clearly in opposition to Joe’s words. 

“I should have been watching him,” Joe clarifies. He tears his gaze away from his friend to look Andy in the eyes. “I left him alone at the bar for—a minute, I swear! I—I’m not sure what happened, but… something is _very_ wrong with him and it is definitely getting worse. He went from stumbling to barely able to move his feet less than a block from the bar.” 

His voice trembles and Nicky reaches out to take his hand. Joe immediately calms, meeting Nicky’s eyes with his own. 

Andy reaches out and grips a hand around Joe’s forearm. “Tell me slowly, everything. What the hell happened tonight?”

Joe lets out an audible breath, his shoulders sagging. “We were at the bar, having a few drinks. For me, that means two. For Booker, well…” His voice trails off but the others understand. Tonight is the anniversary of the death of Booker’s wife. Every year, without fail, this night is a miserable one for their youngest member, and he spends it wallowing in drink and misery. 

The others try to help. But it never gets any better. 

This year, like many before it, Joe had in not so many words, volunteered to spend the night keeping Booker company. This also meant keeping an eye on him, as they had learned early on, that when left to his own devices, Booker sometimes doesn’t make it home by morning. 

More than once, they would go searching and find him passed out in an alleyway, sleeping off a night of likely several bouts of alcohol poisoning.

“There was this woman in a booth close to us. She was reading palms and telling fortunes. If she gets it right, the price is a drink and a generous tip.” Joe’s eyes glance down at their friend. “Booker thought it would be funny to see how wrong she was. He said it was all bullshit, vague nonsense, and sly manipulation. To be honest, at the time, I agreed with him. But then she held his hand and it was like… she was seeing into his soul. She said he is older than his looks appear. She said he was grieving the death of a loved one.” Joe pauses before continuing. “She named his children. All of them.” 

Andy draws a sharp breath. 

“We paid the drink and the price and I thought that was it. I pulled him away. He was incoherent and I knew I had to get him out of there. I took my eyes off of him for a second—”

“The bitch cursed me!” Booker shouts through gritted teeth.

“Is that what she said?” Nicky asks softly. 

Booker grimaces, throwing his head back against his pillow in pain. “Not in so many words,” he says, between groans of agony. “But that’s what happened!” 

“You moron,” Andy mutters under her breath.

“What do we do?” Joe asks, looking at Andy. “Should we find the woman?”

Andy thinks for a moment. “I don’t want to engage unless we have to. It’s a last resort,” she finally says. They watch their friend who struggles to stifle his moans of pain. They can’t die. Any wound will heal, any poison will burn away, but a curse? Andy is the only one of them who has any experience in this department. 

“What did she say to you?” Joe suddenly asks Booker. “She must have said something.”

Booker takes just a second too long to answer. His eyes are glassy when he blinks. “Nothing, she didn’t say anything to me.”

His voice trembles and the rest of them meet eyes. They don’t buy it for a second. 

Andy was ready for a quiet night in. She wasn’t looking for any bullshit tonight. “Alright,” she addresses Booker while looking him over again. “What the hell did she do to you?”

“There’s no physical injury, I already checked.” Joe reaches out. But a second before his fingertips can touch Booker’s torso, the other man jerks back violently. 

“Don’t touch me!”

Joe whips his hand back like he’d been burned.

“What the fuck?” Andy says eloquently for him.

Booker grimaces, his eyes forced shut. He curls in on himself on the floor, trying to scooch away from them with what little strength he has, all while the others stare in shock and wonder. 

“I—I have a problem, guys,” he manages to stutter. When the others don’t speak, he groans loudly, and the most regretful they’ve ever seen their Book, he reaches for the old, mangy pillow they’d laid his head against—his hand whacking Nicky in the thigh in the process. Still curled into a ball, he presses the pillow _hard_ against the crotch of his pants. 

The others raise their brows sky high. 

“What is this?” Nicky asks.

“What the fuck—”

“Did you get sex cursed?” Andy manages to sound impressed and like a disappointed mother at the same time. 

“I—I have to make it stop,” Booker manages. His arms wave about wildly as he struggles to sit up with the pillow still pressed to the front of his pants. He waivers and trembles, climbing to his feet. “This is literally the worst my dick has ever felt, including the time I was molotov’d in Russia in the thirties. 

Andy and Joe try to steady him but he brushes them off harshly. 

There’s only one bedroom in the poor excuse for an apartment they’re inhabiting. Andy agreed to let Joe and Nicky take it, half because she was tired of seeing them unable to keep their hands off each other in the night, and half because Nicky had asked nicely. 

Now, Booker manages to barricade himself inside while the others try not to think too hard about what he’s doing behind that closed door. 

“I definitely wasn’t expecting that,” Joe says with a shake of his head.

*

After living in close quarters for centuries _,_ overhearing or even accidentally walking in on embarrassing, _intimate_ moments is simply unavoidable. 

But they’ve never encountered something like this before. Joe and Nicky sit on the floor, backs against the wall. They keep their voices to a low murmur and try to keep their worries to themselves. Andy doesn’t bother. She paces across the small room they’re in, gnaws on her bottom lip, and looks like she has half a mind to grab her axe and _break_ something. 

An hour goes by before they hear Booker’s voice, hoarse and muffled through the door. “It’s not working.”

Joe and Nicky scramble to their feet as Andy rushes to the door. 

_“Oh!”_ Nicky can’t help but grimace at the smell that greets them. 

“That’s…” Joe’s voice trails off as his eyes land on their blanket that Booker had used in a meager attempt to clean up his mess. “There’s no salvaging that.” 

“Shit,” Andy curses down by Booker’s side. “He’s burning up.”

Booker groans under Andy’s touch but doesn’t pull away. The thin blanket doesn’t do much to hide the erection that is still painfully present.

“How long can he go on like this?” Nicky asks.

“I don’t know,” Andy mutters.

“Come on, not like it can kill me, right?” Booker manages a short laugh before it morphs into another groan of pain. 

“He’s right, it’s got to wear off at some time,” Joe’s voice shakes. He imagines the curse as a poison, coursing through Booker’s system. Their bodies can fight it off, slowly break down toxins into harmless molecules, and heal the damage that’s left in its wake. “Andy? If it can’t kill him, it has to wear off, yeah?”

“I don’t know, Joe,” Andy says honestly, shaking her head. Curses breach the realm of spiritual, not physical. “I don’t fucking know.”

She sighs and runs a hand roughly through her hair. “I’ve seen these curses before. It’s old magic.” This was before even her time with Quynh. “It’s been so long, I can’t imagine… I can’t imagine it’s the same.” She pauses before she speaks again. “It’s possible that… he can’t rid it himself.”

Booker stills and stares at her through a fevered haze and squinted eyes. “What?” His voice comes out a hoarse croak. His throat feels as dry as a desert and pain aches deep in his gut. His blood runs white-hot and his head spins so fast he can barely make out Andy’s concerned face above him. “What are you saying?”

“The curse may need… a partner.”

The others comprehend her words a lot faster than Booker does. 

Nicky speaks first, “How are we supposed to find someone to—” 

“This is ridiculous,” Joe says at the same time. “Booker, are you sure you did it right?”

“Joe!”

Joe gives his lover an abashed shrug. Of course, Nicky is not wrong. The alkaline smell of semen that permeates the air says Booker ‘did it right’ likely half a dozen times, at least. 

“It’s uh… it’s actually feeling worse, guys.” Booker lets out a grunt. “Every time I jack off, it seems to just make it worse.” His body trembles with violent shakes and a groan spill from his pale lips. “I—I think you guys should get out of here.” 

Nicky reaches for his friend, fearing a seizure from the way he shakes. “Booker!” The thigh under his palm is hot to the touch, he feels the heat radiating off of him, even through the rough material of the other man’s pants. 

“Please, guys—just get out of here!” Booker ruts against himself, desperate for release. His skin burns with a need for touch as he fights to retain control over the magic rushing through his veins. “Just go!”

“So you can masturbate until your dick falls off?” Joe asks bluntly, with no manner of eloquence. 

“Fuck, I’m so hard, I gotta do something—” 

“You just said it makes it worse!” Joe reaches forward and attempts to bat at Booker’s hands covering his groin. “Get your hands off of there!”

The reaction is immediate. Booker jumps from Joe’s touch like he’d been scalded. He grimaces and groans, forcing himself away as best he can. 

“What the fuck?” Joe manages. 

Nicky frowns. It is so unlike Booker to pull away from Joe. And then he slowly considers the specific way that Booker had reacted to Joe’s touch. Yet the other man hadn’t pulled away from Andy or himself. His eyes fall onto Booker’s fists pressed tight to his lap as he tries to curl away from them. Blood seeps through his clenched fists from fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms. 

“It’s you,” Nicky says softly, looking up at Joe. “The curse chose you.”

Joe frowns, not understanding at first. But Booker grows eerily quiet at Nicky’s words. Andy pales, perhaps also seeing what Nicky sees. 

“No,” Joe says softly, finally realizing the meaning behind his beloved’s words. He shakes his head. “No, that can’t be.” He looks down at Booker in disbelief. “Why—why would it be me?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Andy says, her voice hard. Her eyes meet Joe’s, sharp and steady. “Outside. Now.”

“Boss, I’ll be fine, I swear—” Booker starts to say.

“Shut up, Book.”

As they gather outside the small bedroom, Nicky closes the door behind them. For the first time in a long time, he’s unable to meet Joe’s eyes. 

“This can’t be right,” Joe says, sounding desperate, looking between them.

“His body reacts to your touch,” Nicky says quietly. “He’s holding himself back, from _you_. The curse wants you, Joe.”

“Nicky, no.” His voice is a broken sound, pleading for anything but this. “There has to be another way, yeah?” He turns to Andy. “We’ll find the woman that did this, or we’ll find another way to break the curse…” Joe’s voice trails off when Andy finally meets his eyes. 

“I think Nicky’s right,” Andy says softly. “I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but Booker is reacting to _you._ I think that means you can fix this. But I can’t ask you to do it. Do you understand what I’m saying, Joe?”

He understands. And the implications terrify him. It would be an absolute betrayal to Nicky. His Nicky, who is his sun and stars, his very reason for existence, his _everything_. How could Joe do this to him? Even for Booker, who is his closest friend. Nicky won’t even look at him. 

“Joe,” Andy says his name carefully. “This is your call.”

“Come on, boss…” 

“No,” Andy says firmly. “This has to be your call.”

“What happens if I don’t?” Joe asks softly.

“It won’t kill him,” Andy says quietly. “It’ll just be pain and pain and more pain, until… we find some other way to end it. Or…”

"Or what?"

Andy swallows, hating that she even has to consider the possibility. “Or Booker loses the fight against it and the curse makes him do something that he'll _really_ regret.”

Joe pales. The idea that Booker could ever do _that_ to him is not one he wants to think about. 

Nicky’s eyes finally lift to meet Joe’s. As he stares into those dark pools, so full of sorrow and despair, he already knows what Joe’s answer will be. _It’s okay,_ Nicky tries to tell him, because he knows that they will be. 

Joe would rather die a thousand deaths than hurt the love of his life. His sweet Nicolò, trying to make him feel better even when his own heart is breaking. “I’ll do it,” he says quietly. 

Nicky nods, and the corners of his lips pull up in a phantom grimace of a smile.

“I am so sorry,” Joe whispers. “He’s suffering and I have a chance to end it.”

“No, don’t be sorry,” Nicky says gently. “You are doing what is right. You are helping Booker.”

“My love.” Joe gently brushes a warm hand against Nicky’s cheek. “Hurting you could never be right.” He closes his eyes and presses their lips together in a tender kiss that carries with it his every regret. 

Nicky’s hands come up to grip around his rib cage as they taste each other’s lips. The other man’s touch anchors him, prepares him for what he is about to do. For he belongs to Nicky and no one else. And they both know this. 

This knowledge gives him the strength to walk back into that bedroom. But it doesn’t make it any easier. 

**Author's Note:**

> [x](http://winters-blue-children.tumblr.com)
> 
> Please come say hi. I would love to talk about this fandom.


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